SET UP A SECOND MONITOR

Get more screen space with a second display

IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes

YOU WILL LEARN How to use a second display with your Mac

YOU’LL NEED macOS, an external display, Apple TV and/or an AirPlay 2-compatible TV

Good as the displays on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are, they’re not exactly... roomy. Even the biggest model only has 16 inches of screen real estate to play with and, while you can tweak the display resolution to cram more windows in or use Mission Control to create multiple desktops, sometimes nothing beats a bigger screen. A much bigger screen. And it’s not just laptops that benefit – you can easily team an iMac with a second display for more wriggle room. Your eyes will thank you, and you’ll get a huge productivity boost too.

More with a monitor

Luckily, connecting and using a second display with any Mac is simple. All you need is a compatible monitor (you can pick a decent one up for as little as £200), a spare USB-C, HDMI or Thunderbolt port on your laptop or desktop (depending on how old it is) and a little bit of macOS know-how. If you have an Apple TV connected to your telly, or even an AirPlay 2-compatible set, you can use that to extend your desktop wirelessly too.

In both cases, your first port of call should be System Preferences > Displays, where you’ll be able to tell macOS how you want the separate displays’ desktops arranged, and make other changes, such as the default resolution and colour profile of your second screen. Read on to find out how you can extend your dekstop.

You can easily team an iMac with a second display for more wriggle room too

Once you’ve set things up to suit you, you’ll find you can work a lot more effectively with a second screen.